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+--- Thread: Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries (/showthread.php?tid=4719)
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - BAJR - 24th January 2013
The IfA is under pressure to ditch its commitment to setting minimum recommended salaries. The Prospect Archaeologists Branch, together with the Diggers Forum, is campaigning to keep the minima.
Currently archaeologists working at PIFA level must be paid at least £15,836 pa, at AIFA level £18,446 pa, and at MIFA level £23,885 pa or their employer risks losing Registered Organisation status with the IfA. The IfA has set minimum salaries since 1996.
In 2008 a working party report showed how far archaeologists pay had fallen behind similar professions: IfA minimum salaries were up to 53% lower than some comparable posts. To redress the balance, the IfA pledged to increase minimum salaries by 13% above inflation for a five-year period. However, this plan was shelved when the recession hit and instead minimum recommended salaries were frozen for two years. There was an increase last year, but now some archaeological employers are pressing for the minimum recommended salaries to be scrapped altogether.
The minimum recommended salaries act as a safety net for the poorest paid in our industry and help in Prospect negotiations with employers over pay. Getting rid of minimum salaries will be a green light to the most unscrupulous employers to drive pay and conditions through the floor. In April last year, the IfA stated that it still intended to increase minima by 13% above inflation 'as soon as economic and market conditions allow'. Later in 2012, a second working party (in which Prospect and others from across the profession, including management, took part) recommended that the IfA should continue to set pay minima.
The current crisis in archaeology was not caused by archaeologists being paid too much. Cutting pay and getting rid of the minima is no solution - it will just make things worse as units compete to cut pay, forcing colleagues out of the profession while those who stay are driven further into poverty.
IfA Council meets on 30 January to make its decision - urge them to keep minimum recommended salaries.
What you can do: email a letter of protest marked 'for the attention of IfA Council' to admin@archaeologists.net (cc to prospectcampaign@hotmail.co.uk) or write to the
IfA Council,
Institute for Archaeologists,
SHES, Whiteknights,
University of Reading,
PO Box 227,
Reading,
RG6 6AB.
Send your email or letter before the meeting on 30 January.
The bigger this protest, the better the chance the minima will be saved.
This email has gone out to all members of the Archaeologists Branch - please encourage others who may not be in our branch to write to the IfA too if they are concerned.
Antony Francis,
Chair, Prospect union Archaeologists Branch
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - monty - 24th January 2013
Typical bad, greedhead employers trying to call the shots..... these should be named and shamed publicly.....after all we know how much they charge.............too many clueless managers makes bad business sense but it goes unchallenged in archaeology.....
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - gwyl - 24th January 2013
21h45; 138 users browsing this thread. (2 members and 136 guests)
c'mon email the IfA and/or Prospect
removing minima is a race to the bottom
self-employed and even owner/operators are at risk of being undercut
& the winners are...?
It won't be YOU.
gwyl
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - troll - 25th January 2013
I have just written to Council and asked for a full feasibility study and that the Membership is given the opportunity to vote in a referendum. In my view, this proposal will change the profession and have such potentially catastrophic effects that I believe that a referendum is not only justified but critical.:0
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - GnomeKing - 25th January 2013
NOT. AT. ALL. BLOODY. SURPRISED!!! corporate take-over .... WHERE IS THE SUPPORT FROM NON_PROFESSIONALS? time2getMAD
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - troll - 25th January 2013
A quote from the IfA website "While there may be individual benefits to joining IfA, the biggest benefit of all is the effect your membership and you as an individual can have on your profession. The more people who join us, the stronger we become, and the more power we have to influence decision makers. In this way we can make sure that only ethical and competent professionals undertake archaeological work, that the public get the maximum benefit from such work, and recognised professionals get the rewards they deserve.
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - GnomeKing - 25th January 2013
i would like those who have supported this to be publicly named - :<
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - GnomeKing - 25th January 2013
"The IfA is its membership, which is why it’s so important that members get involved with the Institute, as this is the only way it can grow and change."
-NO...it needs PRUNING!
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - troll - 25th January 2013
Agreed entirely-the IfA is indeed its Membership and as such, a monumental proposal of this magnitude should be subjected to due feasibility study and then to referendum.
Campaign to keep IfA minimum salaries - BAJR - 25th January 2013
Which is why the member ship MUST email the Council and urge retention of the minima. After all, this is not a call to raise already poor rates, but to stop further cuts.
Cheap Labour ? What are you Worth?
Spread teh word...
Remember this has to go to the Council... the IfA staff are not able to do anything. this is a vote by the Council !